alicia dewittgraphic design

Catalog of Scribbles

As I started to work out my MFA thesis, I wanted to reduce the themes in my work to their simplest expression. I came up with these posters styled in the taxonomical rigor of 19th century natural history, but with playful content.

Natural science illustrations command an inherent authority, and I find myself often using this aesthetic to tell stories. But of course that authority isn't always earned. I started creating forms that would resist order, and put them into a setting that takes them very seriously, showing that it's a absurd to think exact classification schemes can make sense of everything.